You would love to be able to go on holiday without all the packing stress the week/day/evening before you leave? These tips and products make sure you have everything you need in your rented bathroom.

Some people rely on a carefully constructed list, others just throw clothing and skincare in a suitcase the evening before they go on holiday. Some take half of their bathroom products with them, others keep it basic but discover they have forgotten the most important items when they arrive on their destination.

Going on a press trip quite regularly turned me into a – I think – pretty clever, minimalistic traveling woman. I like to keep things basic but make sure my skin and my fellow travellers’ have everything they need. I just stick to these four rules:

Don’t forget to pack handy multitaskers.

You need at least one of these in your bathroom at home and on holiday and preferably also in your handbag: a cream or balm that helps tackle dry lips and cuticles, itchy patches, irritated skin, small wounds, mosquito bites… Avène’s fragrance-free Cicalfate cream is a classic and recently helped heal the cracked corners of my mouth. If you like your formulas petrolatum/mineral oil-free, you can go for an all natural formula like the fragrance-free Paw Paw Ointment by Sukin. Nine ingredients in total, like castor oil, carnauba wax and papaya extract, help soothe and nourish (dehydrated, cracked or sensitive) skin.

Another toiletry bag staple of mine is: Caudalie’s Grape Water: it refreshes on hot days but also calms skin when you have spent too much time in the sun for example.

Handy when traveling with (small) kids or at a festival where taking a shower is not a priority: Beauty Kitchen’s Free From Wish-a-Wash Wet Wipes (9,99 € for 20 wipes, at Holland & Barrett). I normally do not like cleansing wipes and will never advise using them as most of them do not cleanse your skin that thoroughly and they are not environment-friendly but these natural, fragrance-free wipes are compostable. (Bio-degradable is not good enough according to the natural skincare brand. It can take years before bio-degradable wipes are completely gone.) They come in handy while out and about to give dirty hands and faces a quick cleanse. (You can tear the wipes to make them smaller so you only use what you need.) After using, throw them in the compost.

2. Go for travel-size.

This is a no brainer, I know: travel-size products take up less space in your luggage and you can easily use them for a fortnight or longer. Keep sample sizes of your favourite products (ask for them at the check-out of your perfumery) or stock up on some mini’s a lot of beauty brands make of their bestsellers.

I have a large travel size shower products and skincare in our bathroom – let’s say we can go on holiday for a long, long time, only using those – but I also keep a refillable set of travel-sized jars and bottles I fill with my favourite, allergy-proof products.

If you want to take care of your skin as well as of the planet, Yves Rocher’s I love my Planet Concentrated Shampoo (3,95 €) and Concentrated Shower Gel (3,95 €) are great options. You can use the shampoo thirty washes, you take forty showers with the shower gel. (A bargain, at that price.) The formulas are short, good and sls-free. By putting the concentrated formulas in smaller bottles, the brand is saving 39% and 50% CO2 and plastic, respectively, compared to its regular bottle of shampoo and shower gel. (The bottles themselves are made of recycled plastic to boot.)

Also great to take with you on holiday: the smaller versions of Rainpharma’s Aromatherapy Essentials range and its skincare. You buy them as a gift or promotional set but the brand has an interesting promotion this summer: if you buy five skincare products, you get a sturdy travel bag (as seen in the pictures) with 6 travel-size products. The no-nonsense formulas are natural, vegan and are made in Belgium. (They are not for you if you are allergic to essential oils.)

Beauty Kitchen put its bestsellers in tiny jars that fit your toiletry or hand bag perfectly. Like the cleansing and hydrating Seahorse Plankton 5 Minute Miracle Mask (€ 3,99, bij Holland & Barrett) so you can turn a Sunday on holiday into a mask day.

I put my favourite fragrances in those handy, refillable travel bottles you can get at Ici Paris XL. Or put some samples in my toiletry bag.

3. Keep it basic.

Yes, you could just put your entire skincare routine in your toiletry bag – hopefully in smaller jars) but I like to keep it very basic on holiday: an oil cleanser, an hydrating serum (handy when there is AC everywhere or on the plane), sun protection (!!!) and a cream I can use during the day and at night (so without an spf).

Lately, I have been traveling with Bella Aura’s Daily Repair Moisturizer and Antioxidant Booster that are part of its Discovery Kit (€ 50, via Beautywiseshop.be). It is expensive for a total of 50 ml of skincare, I know, but these two fragrance-free formulas are packed with antioxidants, vitamins, peptides and natural oils that help protect your skin against free radicals and keep it nourished. And they smell lovely thanks to bitter orange peel oil (not a good idea if your skin does not like essential oils, though). A little goes a long way, too. I have been using both creams for up to a week now and they are still pretty full.

4. Bigger is better in the sunshine.

There is one important category where the travel size rule does not apply: sunscreen. (Unless you take a whole lot of travel sizes with you.) You should go through at least one large bottle of sunscreen with the family during a one week-holiday. Because you have to apply a lot of product and apply it often. More on new generation and ocean-friendly sunscreens here and here.

I wrote about holiday make-up here. And if you are not sure what skincare to pack for a flight: I got you sorted here.